Nauseous vs. Nauseated: Usage Guide

Those who insist that nauseous can properly be used only to mean "causing nausea" and that its later "affected with nausea" meaning is an error for nauseated are mistaken. Current evidence shows these facts: nauseous is most frequently used to mean physically affected with nausea, usually after a linking verb such as feel or become; figurative use is quite a bit less frequent. Use of nauseous to mean "causing nausea or disgust" is much more often figurative than literal, and this use appears to be losing ground to nauseating. Nauseated is used more widely than nauseous when referring to being affected with nausea.

Examples of nauseating in a Sentence

the nauseating smell of rotting garbage
The way the animals were treated was nauseating.
It was nauseating to see the two of them act like lovesick teenagers.

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'nauseating.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.